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Officer Indicted for Murder After Killing Unarmed Veteran

ATLANTA (CN) – It took less than an hour on Thursday for a grand jury to indict a DeKalb County police officer on charges stemming from the March 2015 shooting death of an unarmed black veteran.

Officer Robert Olsen turned himself in Friday morning and was released on bond. The charges against him include two counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault, two counts of violating the oath of office and one count of making a false statement.

Demonstrators who had camped outside the DeKalb County courthouse all week cheered and chanted “All six counts!” after the indictment was announced.

Last year, Olsen was dispatched to Chamblee Heights Apartment after a resident called 911 out of concern for Anthony Hill, who had stripped off his clothes.

Hill, a 27-year-old Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during his service.

Olsen fatally shot Hill when he did not respond to a command to stop moving toward the officer. Hill’s girlfriend has contended that her boyfriend had a bad reaction to the medication he was taking before his death.

Since the shooting, Olsen has said that he had feared for his life when he fired, and that he believed Hill was high on PCP or bath salts.

Because Georgia is the only state that lets officers present their case without cross-examination, Olsen was allowed to testify for 20 minutes on Thursday.

He is being represented by high-profile Georgia defense attorney Don Samuel, whose clients include NFL stars Ray Lewis and Ben Roethlisberger, as well as Atlanta rapper T.I.

About author

Filming Cops was started in 2010 as a conglomerative blogging service documenting police abuse. The aim isn’t to demonize the natural concept of security provision as such, but to highlight specific cases of State-monopolized police brutality that are otherwise ignored by traditional media outlets.